Fanny contemptuously shook her head. She walked to the door, and before Diana could stop her, she had rushed across to her own room and locked herself in.
There she walked up and down panting. She hardly understood her own rage, and she was quite conscious that, for her own interests, she had acted during the whole afternoon like a fool. First, stung by the pique excited in her by the talk of the luncheon-table, she had let herself be exploited and explored by Alicia Drake. She had not meant to tell her secret, but somehow she had told it, simply to give herself importance with this smart lady, and to feel her power over Diana. Then, it was no sooner told than she was quickly conscious that she had given away an advantage, which from a tactical point of view she had infinitely better have kept; and that the command of the situation might have passed from her to this girl whom Diana had supplanted. Furious with herself, she had tried to swear Miss Drake to silence, only to be politely but rather scornfully put aside.
Then the party had broken up. Mr. Birch had been offended by the absence of the hostess, and had vouchsafed but a careless good-bye to Miss Merton. The Roughsedges went off without asking her to visit them; and as for the Captain, he was an odious young man. Since their departure, Mrs. Colwood had neglected her, and now Diana's secret return, her long talk with Mrs. Colwood, had filled the girl's cup of bitterness. She had secured that day a thousand pounds for her family and herself; and at the end of it, she merely felt that the day had been an abject and intolerable failure! Did the fact that she so felt it bear strange witness to the truth that at the bottom of her anger and her cruelty there was a masked and distorted something which was not wholly vile--which was, in fact, the nature's tribute to something nobler than itself? That Diana shivered at and repulsed her was the hot-iron that burned and seared. And that she richly deserved it--and knew it--made its smart not a whit the less.
Fanny did not appear at dinner. Mrs. Colwood and Diana dined alone--Diana very white and silent. After dinner, Diana began slowly to climb the shallow old staircase. Mrs. Colwood followed her.
"Where are you going?" she said, trying to hold her back.
Diana looked at her. In the girl's eyes there was a sudden and tragic indignation.
"Do you all know?" she said, under her breath--"all--all of you?" And again she began to mount, with a resolute step.
Mrs. Colwood dared not follow her any farther. Diana went quickly up and along the gallery; she knocked at Fanny's door. After a moment Mrs. Colwood heard it opened, and a parley of voices--Fanny's short and sullen, Diana's very low. Then the door closed, and Mrs. Colwood knew that the cousins were together.
How the next twenty minutes passed, Mrs. Colwood could never remember. At the end of them she heard steps slowly coming down the stairs, and a cry--her own name--not in Diana's voice. She ran out into the hall.